How to deal with a DM who makes major changes to a PC without the player's permission?

Question

So last night I was absent from our game and my DM took over my character with neither my knowledge nor consent. Not only that, he also changed my characters relationship with an NPC.

I’m really not sure how to handle this but as far as I’m concerned it’s a blatant abuse of power. Rather than outright quitting I’d like to handle this like an adult and talk it over but I need help making a sound argument.

Sadly I cannot say exactly what happened because it would be NSFW but just knowing that should give you an idea of what he did while I was gone. I’ll let him make choices on what skills and abilities I can have and what I can and can’t use them for maintain the power balance but I’m not about to let him tell me how to RP my character especially when it doesn’t involve how I interact with other players.

He’s also never taken other players characters over when their absent and said himself it’s okay to be absent or leave without an explanation.

I think what brought this on is that I refused to use a character from another one of our games just because they have overlapping storylines. He was obviously upset about that so I think it’s possible that was the reason that he suddenly had a change of heart.

Or in hindsight it just could be that his social skills are even worse than I thought and he honestly thought it was a good idea. I mean mine are pretty bad but I can compensate with cold reading as long as I can see the person or hear their voice.

I would like my DM to retcon the relationship change and to let them know that they shouldn't be taking over RP for my character again. How can I go about doing this?

Answer 1

You can explain that you are upset, that you don’t appreciate the changes that he made, and that you would like to have them ret-con’d from the game. And he can either appreciate that, apologize, and ret-con it, or he can not. Ultimately, the only thing you actually have control over is whether or not you are going to play.

It is probably best to talk in private, definitely best to talk outside of gametime (even if you just show up for game a little early), and it’s definitely best not to accuse him of anything—not of it being retribution or response to things you’ve done that he didn’t like, nor anything else. Just go in assuming, or at least pretending, that he meant well and just made a mistake. No matter how implausible that is. (And if it really is implausible, I think you really ought to reconsider your decision to try to continue in this game.)

His hands-off or not behavior with other PCs when their players have been absent is probably not relevant. If you get that far into an argument—if he disputes your simple position of “this is my character and this is not what I want for them”—then this isn’t worth discussing. This isn’t a negotiation; this is you standing up and saying “no,” and then letting him take or leave it.

But don’t try to make it an ultimatum; that never works. Playing together requires trust and cooperation—he’s damaged your trust, but you have decided to try to continue to play. That means you have—that you must have—a certain baseline level of trust in him going forward. If you need an ultimatum, that’s not trust. And if his response is not favorable—if it undermines the trust that you have—then you are going to want to leave, and “forcing” him via ultimatum isn’t going to change that this is a bad game to be in. You need to see him acknowledge his mistake and take action to undo it, not because he’s “forced” to but because it’s the right thing to do. If he won’t do that, I don’t see how you can trust him enough to continue playing.

As we often say here, bad gaming is usually worse than no gaming. This, to me, would qualify as pretty “bad gaming,” if everything is as you say. I would probably explain my position pretty simply, ideally as simply as “not cool, man.” And I would expect that to be pretty immediately respected and an apology and fix to be pretty forthcoming. If this was something he honestly thought was cool and is sorry to learn he was mistaken, then fine. If instead there is anything else—defensiveness, justification, changing the subject to something I did previously, then that would confirm for me that I want nothing to do with this DM.